All Rise...

Editor's Note

The Charge

Hello, Danny. Come and play with us. Come and play with us. Forever. And
ever. And ever.

Opening Statement

In past reviews, I've made mention of my mental list of movies that I've
never seen that I must see. The Shining happened to be on that list when
I found out that we had received a review copy of Warner Brothers' latest DVD
release of Stanley Kubrick's famous movie. So, I pulled my editorial strings and
it found its way into my hands. Was it everything I hoped it would be?

Facts of the Case

Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their
son Danny (Danny Lloyd) are a small family with their share of problems. Jack is
an aspiring writer, three months on the wagon after his alcoholism caused family
problems. Danny has mysterious "episodes," which any horror movie
aficionado will identify as either a special "gift" or as demon
possession (in this case, it seems to be a little of both). Wendy is caught in
the middle, always striving to keep a perky smile with her stiff upper lip.
Their lives become noteworthy when Jack accepts a position as the winter
caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, an austere lodge that closes during the winter
despite its close proximity to abundant snow. No sooner has the trio settled in
than the foreboding mansion begins to exert its wily influence on Jack and
Danny. The mental strain sets them on a downward spiral that can only finish in
tragedy…

The Evidence

As I said in the Opening Statement, this was the first
time I had seen The Shining in its entirety. I had seen bits and pieces
of it in the past, and no one who is as versed in film lore as I can escape
knowing its twists and turns. Well, while I'm at it, I might as well confess
that I am not a disciple of Stanley Kubrick. Spartacus was vaguely
interesting but too long, Full Metal
Jacket and A Clockwork
Orange were brilliant, and I am one of the minority who thought Eyes Wide Shut was an excellent film
(and one of the even smaller majority who thought it had a positive moral).
However, I must side with Judge Patrick Naugle, who says 2001: A Space Odyssey was overly long and
boring. Compared to Arthur C. Clarke's riveting novel, the film is pretentious
bullocks. There. Now that I've aired my opinion of the half of Stanley Kubrick's
body of work I've seen, how do I feel about The Shining? To be honest,
rather mixed. First the positive.

Stanley Kubrick was known as a meticulous filmmaker, and that attention to
detail and precision is quite obvious in The Shining. While the exteriors
of the Overlook Hotel were shot on location at the Timberline Lodge in my native
Oregon, the posh interiors of the hotel were built on soundstages at the EMI
Studios in England. Filming lasted close to a year, starting in May 1978 and not
wrapping until April 1979. It was one of the first films to make extensive use
of the Steadicam, a device that allows a camera operator to carry around a
camera while maintaining the fluid, stable look of a stationary or dolly-mounted
camera. His actors give precise, controlled line readings that speak for his
influence as a director—it's even claimed that he forced Shelley Duvall to
endure over 100 takes of a particular scene. (And is it just me, or is Shelley
Duvall rather attractive in that ugly duckling sort of way?)

If you had to toss The Shining into a broad
genre, it would be classified as a horror film. As such, it's filled with the
requisite creeps and chills. Particularly effective is the score by Wendy Carlos
and Rachel Elkind. With its screeching strings, the dissonant, atonal music is
reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's Psycho score. The scene with
the Creepy Little Girls (quoted in The Charge) is unsettling in its directness,
but I found the scene between Nicholson and Philip Stone as the deceased
caretaker, Delbert Grady, in the hotel's Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired ballroom
bathroom to be even more disturbing. The scene with the naked chick who turns
into a decaying, crusty old lady? I was scared of naked women for, oh, at least
a couple hours. And of course, there's the infamous "Heeere's Johnny!"
scene. Who wouldn't have the bejeesus scared out of them by Jack Nicholson with
an axe?

So that's the positives. What about the negatives?

At two hours, 22 minutes, it's the longest 142-minute movie I've ever seen.
Crikey, some of the scenes just seem to drag on forever. It would be one thing
if they built tension, but it's another when they just instill boredom. Maybe
there's a reason Kubrick cut twenty minutes from the film for its international
release. There's only so much you can take of Jack Nicholson mugging and
yammering to an imaginary bartender, or little Danny chattering to himself in an
allegedly creepy voice, or Shelley Duvall looking vexed. Snore, yawn. It's bad
for a film when the good scenes are few and far between. I'm not saying The
Shining is bad, but the flotsam and jetsam bog it down.

Macaulay Culkin…Jonathan Lipnicki…these annoying child actors
owe a debt of gratitude to Danny Lloyd, who paved the way for generations of
cloying kids. His "creepy voice" sounds like he's choking on a wad of
Bubblelicious, and the little finger movement for the imaginary friend who lives
in his mouth? Ugh. "Danny isn't here anymore Mrs. Torrance." Ooh, I'm
afraid! What kind of child-possessing hellspawn is courteous enough to address
someone like he's a young Southern gentleman? What ever happened to fellatio in
Hell?

Speaking of, that leads to Warner Brothers' new DVD. The
film is presented in 1.33:1 full frame, which is an open matte transfer of its
1.66:1 theatrical aspect ratio. Allegedly, this preserves Kubrick's wishes for
the film's home video presentation. Whatever. This is friggin' DVD, and the dude
was nuts if he thought it was better to alter a film from its theatrical
presentation. It was created from a "new 2000 digital master from restored
elements." I have not seen the original DVD, so I cannot speak on how it
stacks up against the earlier release. The image overall is pleasant, with no
color bleeding, minimal edge enhancement, and few dust blips. However, it would
have benefited from the extra resolution, and it's obvious that there is extra
room at the top and bottom of the frame that is filled with extraneous
composition. There's no point whatsoever in the continued insistence in 4:3 full
frame. Apparently, it's quite okay with the Kubrick estate (or whoever made the
lame decision to continue the open matte policy) to alter the original mono
soundtrack to a new Dolby Digital 5.1 remix. For a remix, it's rather pleasant.
The score is spread throughout the channels, and the dialogue is spatially
integrated. However, certain elements have a hollow feeling that are telltale
giveaways of its monaural roots.

(For comparative purposes, here's what our former editor, Sean McGinnis, had
to say about the original release: "The video of this DVD is little better
than your average VHS. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a VHS copy
prior to becoming a DVD. The film elements were a wreck, with abundant
scratches, nicks and scars…The image is soft. Really soft…After two
and half hours of this, I felt like I was watching the screen wearing someone's
prescription glasses.")

The extras appear to be the same as the original release: "The Making
of The Shining" documentary filmed by Kubrick's daughter, Vivian, and a
theatrical trailer. The documentary is around 30 minutes long, and is a rambling
look at the making of the film, with interviews, film clips, and behind the
scenes footage. It's minorly interesting, though definitely not a prime
purchasing point. There is also a commentary track for this documentary, though
I did not sample it.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

As usual, I blew most my negative comments in the Evidence section. My
apologies.

Reviewing this film, it reminds me of a quote from The Simpsons (but
then, just about everything somehow reminds me of The Simpsons).
Actually, it reminds me of two things, but only one that's germane to criticism
of the movie. The one that's not was a segment of a "Treehouse of
Horror" Halloween episode called "The Shinning" because they
wanted to avoid lawsuits (as remarked in the episode). The other, relevant quote
is also from a Halloween episode, the first one actually. Lisa reads Bart Edgar
Allen Poe's "The Raven," and Bart is rather unimpressed with its
supposed scariness. Lisa tells him, "Well it was written in 1845. Maybe
people were easier to scare back then." He replies, "Oh, yeah. Like
when you look at 'Friday the Thirteenth, Part 1.' Pretty tame by today's
standards." A lot has happened in horror movies since 1980, when The
Shining hit the silver screen. While it bears little resemblance to A Nightmare On Elm Street or
Scream, it's difficult not to weigh the
visceral, gruesome chills of those movies with the plodding, lethargic
"scares" of The Shinning…err, I mean, The
Shining.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find Scatman Crothers' "Dick"
Hallorann very dated and not a little racist and sexist? His inflection runs the
risk of sounding like a jive daddy. The shots of his apartment with the pin-ups
of nude black girls with giant afros are laughable in a most pathetic way. He
appeared in all sorts of blaxploitation films—Truck Turner, Detroit 9000, Black Belt
Jones—but here that persona is out of place to the point of being
offensive.

Closing Statement

If you already own the original DVD, then rejoice! There's no point in
upgrading, unless you require the new Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, or think
that the "digitally restored and remastered" video is worth an
additional $24.98. If you've never seen the film, then a rental might be a good
way to spend 142 minutes, as long as you have a hefty cup of java standing
by.

I haven't mentioned until now that The Shining was based on a novel
by horrormeister Stephen King. Reportedly, King was dissatisfied with Kubrick's
rather loose retelling of the novel. A television miniseries produced in 1997
stuck much closer to the novel; unfortunately, Warner Bros. has not released it
on DVD.

I hate to harp on the aspect ratio issue, but here's a little example. On
the left is the image as it is displayed in full frame on the DVD. On the right,
I've cropped it to its theatrical ratio of 1.66:1.

I ask you: which framing has more dramatic tension? The one where the
figures are tightly framed, or the one where there's miles of room above and
below? And lest you think I'm cherry-picking a prime example, I tried the same
experiment with all three pictures I placed in this review. The other two also
improved significantly with the theatrical aspect ratio. The next time Warner
Bros. chooses to release these Kubrick films on DVD, I hope they'll opt to
release it as it was seen theatrically.

The Verdict

Stanley Kubrick's legacy needs no judgment from this court, despite this
judge's misgivings about the quality of this particular film. The Shining
is free to play forever. And ever. And ever…

Give us your feedback!

Did we give The Shining: Digitally Remastered Version a fair trial? yes / no

What's "fair"? Whether positive or negative, our reviews should be unbiased, informative, and critique the material on its own merits.